When Is A Church Not A Church

I'm taking a break today from writing a devotional for The Kingdom of God series. Ironically, the reason I'm doing so involves me practicing one of the applications I recommended at the end of Sunday's sermon. I encouraged everyone to become aware of the issue of Kingdom justice as we read the news or otherwise engage the media. I said, "when you see injustice, speak up." That's exactly what I am doing with today's blog.

There is a church located in Topeka, Kansas, called Westboro Baptist Church. They have taken up the practice of using the funeral services of fallen military heroes and other prominent people to proclaim their agenda. Their dishonor will sink to a new low today if they follow through on plans to protest the funeral of Christina Taylor Green, the nine year-old girl slain in Saturday's madman rampage in Arizona.

I cannot express how utterly contemptible this church's behavior is. Christina was an innocent victim of an heinous crime. Uninvited protests at her funeral will inflict an injustice on Christina and her family that is even more profound than the taking of Christina's life. Funerals are meant to serve as opportunities to mourn the deaths of those we hold dear, while somehow also finding the grace to celebrate their lives and the hope of resurrection. When a funeral service is held for someone we don't know, the right thing to do, the just thing to do, the Christian thing to do is to facilitate and support the goal of mourning death while celebrating life and hope of the resurrection.

Westboro Baptist Church's protests at funerals do just the opposite. They rudely interfere with the mourning of death. They interrupt the celebration of life and hope.  In so doing, they become collaborators with the same kind of injustice that took Christina's life in the first place. They become spiritual accomplices with her passing.

Collaborators with injustice and death that they are, I am ashamed that Westboro Baptist Church refer to themselves either as Baptists or as a church. They do not deserve either designation. I wish they would drop both from their name. Their plans to protest today at the funeral service for Christina Taylor Green are unjust, immoral, and utterly counter to the values of Christ's Kingdom. They are to be disavowed by all.